Chap. 12
He awoke in a daze and the blur from the tranquilizer still had not worn off. He tried to move his arms and legs but could not get any feeling in his extremities. The room was dark and there were only a couple lights coming from what seemed like torches in the distance. He felt a small twitch in his hand and tried with more effort he could feel and move his hands within an hour. The darkness turned to dim light and he could see the room a little better it looked like a smaller dungeon with stone walls and metal doors.
Light footsteps could be heard in the distance. As the footsteps got closer the light from the torches grew brighter. He closed his eyes and pretended to go back to sleep. The footsteps stopped by his left side. “AHh Nick no use in pretending you are asleep. I can feel what you feel.” Nick slowly opened his eyes then looked at his captor. Her voice echoed slightly in the room. “Im sure youre confused as to how I got here well its kind of like what happen to you. Remember our joy ride in the lightning storm. If you had not covered me with your body I wouldn’t have made it. Since I was touching you when you were struck I got some of your powers. But I bet they told you nothing about why the lightning struck because it was no accident.” “Elizabeth what did you do to me and why? Why are you helping these people you don’t know who they are. They told me everything, ” Nick managed to speak from a hoarse throat. “Sure they did. Well let me give you the real version. They are the ones who set the lightning upon you and they have done it before in history in order to preserve the timeline and the natural evolution of this planet. They use special people like you to preserve a balance that favors their goals and ambitions. They use them and their own extensive power to curtail any effort made in independent evolution but I am sure they have told you their own version of garbage.”
She left abruptly not even giving him a chance to answer back. Nick barely had time to process the fact that she had survived and gained some of his abilities but to what extent and why did she come to talk to him. It was dark and damp again. He tried to stretch but couldn’t under the chains. She came back all the lights came on and the stone walls evaporated into white metal walls. An airtight door cranked open somebody else walked in he could almost see the room on the other side. The man stood tall at least a foot over Elizabeth she nodded to him. The man walked over and touched Nick on the leg. A surge of burning electricity bled through his veins. His vision blurred for a moment then faded back to black.
By the time Jim and Ani were aboard with the reinforcements Pat had been looking for Jim for a week. He had not been on his cabin and Pat could not report him missing because it would raise too many red flags. Jim had fulfilled his promise about finding the best spot for carrying out the plan. Their concern for NIck was growing with time. they realized the route put them at three major population centers. Athens, Rome and Cairo were the top spots.
“Dammit he has to be below in the labs somewhere. Maybe he has the whole lab under his control or worse the ship in fact who paid for all this anyways?” Jim started typing up questions hopefully he could find the answers in time. The meanwhile Ani was talking with the agents checking blueprints of the ship that they had available. “But these measurements just don’t add up look here there is an unaccounted space of about three meters in width thats enough for a hallway of sorts and over here by the engine room this space on this map say there is a power conduit and this map says in turns into a sewer main.”
Pat walked into a room buzzing with activity and maps being displayed and examined and people conversing tactics in the corner. After much discussion they found that the only way would be to bring out their enemy giving them something they couldn’t resist. Quiet deliberation led to a confrontation. “Ani are you sure your capable I have seen that from the way you handle yourself but this is extremely risky.” “You want to talk risky what about our ace in the hole getting burned then we got nothing and my friend ends up dead for nothing.” Then the agents and Ani looked at Pat. He had been sitting by the balcony in the room they had borrowed from Nick. “Soo Pat we are gonna need a little hand.” He looked over and finished chewing his much needed dinner and whiskey. “ Sure whats up you need bait and IM looking pretty. Well ill tell you what set me up and if they come for me at least we will be able to see them but if the whole boat if the whole company is in cahootz then we’ll know for certain but its already too late we are in the mediterranean and its about time they start their project hahahah.” “You don’t seem like yourself sir are you alright.” “ Look lets just get him back he is the main piece to the puzzle its not like he is going to get killed. They need him for the last process if they want to expand.”
Everybody looked at eachother and smiled with satisfaction they were ready to go. A frontal assault was out of the question which is why they opted for a hijacking of the ship they had the men they had the resources and it was the only thing that would grab the attention of the sinister operators behind the plot. They could not find a better way to get their attention. Unfortunately they didn’t know that the submarine under the ship had already departed with Nick aboard. The submarine was headed towards the main base among one of the beautiful isolated islands Prometheus had picked for his homebase. Nick had been unconcious but could still feel the emotions of the ones close to him. Thankfully he knew his parents were safe and they were aboard yet they were under a sort of spell confusing and disorienting them.
JIm and Ani were hard at work the agency people were now spread acorss the boat on a beautiful afternoon. They carried regular weapons with the addition of a couple special weapons to help them deal with any threats from the robed entities. The sun shined brightly on this mediterranean afternoon. The sun made his brow sweat as JIm checked more blueprints by the poolside on his tablet. He saw something familiar then tried a new approach. He sent the blueprints of the ship to his artificial intelligence computer. He knew it was only a prototype but he felt in it could stand up to the test. The artificial intelligence assimilated the data and completed its scan. “ Jim we had an unusual side question?” “ Yes becky what is it?” JIm was ecstatic at the fact that the computer was asking for permission to pursue a different train of thought a different line of questioning. His computer had been in the small stages but it represented the future of all computers he thought to himself. “ Well the formation of the ship and the placement of certain signal boosters and iron beams have me suspicious can you give me the blueprint of a neural cortex?” Jim obliged Becky his A.I. and gave her full access to his neuroscientific database. Five minutes later becky came back with an extensive report supporting her argument. Which was explained by her robotic voice, “ After looking and comparing two pictures for several moments I realized the two are the same. She displayed two pictures. One picture on her display showed the neural synapses of a human brain and on the side showed the ship and highlighted few parts. The ships design was a mimic of the human brain. The ship appeared to have a fiber optic and iron beam network that symbolized that of a neo cortex human brain. “Om my god” uttered Ani. Jim blew up the image on the screen. “ What are the bridge’s metal composits and what are the main components and blow an image of those metals.” In seconds the outline of the bridge of the ship came up framed by the larger picture of the boat. The whole room was staring at the image withe their breath held in silence trying to understand the image. The bridge started to appear as a satellite dish. The magnesium and copper alloys that were used in the construction of neuro-signal boosters were plentiful in the spiral that appeared. When the final image came online the view that highlighted the important parts it appeared as if the whole ship was used to boost brain emg signals in order to increase the capacity of any mind in a contagious wave that jumped from a large group of people. Essentially the goal seemed to be to use large group of people to increase their brain capacity by hitting each brain with advanced cell activation. Then it jumped from each population it hit. Each person boosted the signal and it bounces from person to person increasing with intensity
. After that it was essentially just like a line of dominoes falling on each other except the dominoes were cities of people. “ If we are lucky ⅔ of the people affected will survive but most likely only a third of the people contaminated will survive.” Everybody looked grimly at each other. “Well lets get Nick and shut it down. Their best shot would have been at Rome but after I checked a few things I realized Athens would be the right spot because of a concert that they have planned for tomorrow night.” They had less than a day to form an assault plan in a ship they could not even find the right blueprints for. They had finally agreed and set the time for their hijacking. Pat was able to get in contact with some of the agency men in greece and turkey and told them to be ready with tactical support. If allowed to continue this incident would cost millions of lives and nobody would be able to stop it after it started. Pat had never seen this kind of lack of regard from his archenemy and wondered at the thought of fighting an enemy who cares so little for his own people that he would willingly sacrifice them in order to preserve the whole of his operations. Paticlus saw no honor in this game he had been forced to play he missed the stars flying about nothingness watching the nebulae. Worst of all he realized that part of his mission may be impossible for him to carry out but he put that thought away and focused on the issue at hand.
Nick was stuck in a daze because the controller did not want him to be conscious while the submarine made its way to the headquarters of Prometheus. The submarine had made a few stops God knows where though since all Nick could see was impenetrable darkness. Despite his sense deprivation he felt when the ship surfaced twice. He remained calm and he focused all his energy within himself separating from his body and focusing on his energy. He cleared his mind and began to see clearly he felt clearly with no inhibitions then he realized what had to be done.
Hell's Canopy Page 6